Archive for the 'Inside 3Ci' Category

Employee Announcement: John Styers, Vice President of Corporate Strategy and Industry Relations

3Cinteractive is pleased to announce the addition of John Styers to the team. He joins the 3Ci family as our Vice President of Corporate Strategy and Industry Relations.  John Styers John brings a wealth of experience and expertise to 3Ci. As a founding member and Executive Board member of the Mobile Marketing Association (MMA) and as Chairman of the Annual Global Messaging Congress in Europe, John is well versed in the wireless ecosystem. He is a frequent speaker at MMA events, 3GSM, the Global Messaging Congress, and CTIA.

John’s expert focus on messaging, enterprise solutions, mobile health (mHealth), and mobile marketing make him an invaluable member of our team. Please join us in welcoming John to 3Ci.

The MMA’s 2010 US Consumer Best Practices Committee Meeting and Dinner

3Cinteractive, along with Neustar, was proud to sponsor the Mobile Marketing Association’s (MMA) 2010 Consumer Best Practices (CBP) Public Forum event. 3Ci also played host to the MMA’s CBP Committee Meeting at our offices in Boca Raton as well as a VIP dinner at the Seagate Beach Club in Delray Beach.

Niki Dunbar, Alison Billings, Mike FitzGibbon, Mark Smith, Ryan Martin
Pictured, left to right: Niki Dunbar, 3Cinteractive; Alison Billings, T-Mobile USA; Mike FitzGibbon
and Mark Smith, 3Cinteractive; and Ryan Martin, U.S. Cellular

By all accounts both the MMA CBP Committee meeting and the Industry Forum were a big hit. All of the feedback regarding the events was tremendous and several highly productive meetings occurred as a result of the forum.

3Ci thanks Neustar, the MMA, the CBP Committee members, and the forum attendees for helping to make this year’s Consumer Best Practices Forum a success, and special thanks go to Kelly Dowling, Jeff Michaud, and Joe Arcadi of the 3Cinteractive team for their efforts.

The forum, held at the Boca Raton Resort and Club in Boca Raton, Florida, discussed the CBP Guidelines, which are produced by the MMA’s CBP Committee (of which 3Cinteractive is a member). The guidelines provide measures of acceptable and unacceptable practices. Updated regularly, these guidelines set the industry standard for cross- carrier mobile content services, such as short messaging service (SMS), multimedia messaging service (MMS), shortcode programs, interactive voice response (IVR), and mobile web.

Employee Profile: Karly Dreker, Compliance and Program Coordinator

As 3Cinteractive’s Compliance and Program Coordinator, Karly Dreker is responsible for managing the entire program submission process. Karly works closely with aggregators and clients to get campaigns to market as quickly as possible, saving clients both time and money.

Simple Mobile

Born and raised in Boca Raton, Florida, Karly attended the University of Miami where she studied Advertising, Marketing, and Psychology. Her career with 3Cinteractive began in the summer of 2007 when she became the company’s first intern. After graduating from Miami in 2008, Karly came on board full time as 3Ci’s Marketing Specialist.

While very successful in the Marketing and Creative Department, Karly’s tireless work ethic and unmatched attention to detail have proven to be a great compliment to an already exceptional Client Services Department.

In her spare time, Karly enjoys traveling, going to the beach, swimming, and any kind of activities on or in the water. She is also an avid University of Miami Hurricanes and Miami Heat fan.

Notes from the 2009 Mobile Marketing Forum in Los Angeles

MMF - Los Angeles 2009

The Mobile Marketing Association’s (MMA) Mobile Marketing Forum (MMF) — Los Angeles brought together agencies, brands, carriers, and other members of the global mobile marketing ecosystem. Jeremy Martin, 3Cinteractive’s Vice President of Business Development, was able to see how brands are beginning to leverage mobile in a very sophisticated way.

What was evident during the MMF is that mobile is being valued as more than just a point advertising / marketing solution. The case studies presented by some of the largest brands in the world shows that mobile has become an integral component to an enterprise or brand’s marketing, sales, service, and customer relationship management (CRM) programs. There were working examples of multi-platform strategies employed with solutions spanning messaging, mobile web, and applications commonly deployed, with each platform type being used to drive traffic across the other.

At the MMF, 3Cinteractive sponsored the Targeting, Creative and Measurement discussion, which was chaired by Jeremy. The panel spoke about the long-term aspects of mobile marketing and the related on-going customer engagement. The view held by the panelists — among them Maria Mandel, Senior Partner, Executive Director - Digital Innovation, Ogilvy; Richard Ting, Vice President, Executive Creative Director, Mobile & Emerging Platforms, R/GA; and John Hadl, CEO, Brand In Hand — is that mobile marketing and mobile technology is extremely valuable when fully integrated across a brand’s and an enterprise’s marketing, sales, service, and CRM programs. The long-term on-going customer communication aspects are shown to be the most effective when defined during the discovery / development phase of mobile marketing. Mobile is becoming a core component of effective CRM communication channels and it’s clear that brands / enterprises and technology providers are working very closely together to integrate mobile marketing solutions.

Two of the main highlights of the show were comments from AT&T® Interactive and Microsoft®. Matt Crowley, COO of AT&T Interactive, stated that across AT&T’s interactive advertising, mobile click through rates (CTR) are two to three times higher and call through is more than three times higher than the online equivalents. Charles Johnson, General Manager of Mobile Advertising at Microsoft, shared they are focusing campaign success measurement on the actual brand revenue results generated, not just click / call through or impressions.

Employee Profile: Eric Santelices, Senior Systems Administrator / Sales Support Engineer

Eric Santelices, Senior Systems Administrator / Sales Support Engineer 

Eric Santelices

Eric Santelices is the newest member of the 3Cinteractive team, working out of the company’s headquarters in Boca Raton, Florida. Due to his years of experience and his technical expertise, Eric has assumed the dual role of Senior Systems Administrator and Sales Support Engineer.

Eric has over twenty years of IT operations management and architecture experience, making him well suited to handling both systems administration and sales support for our clients.

Prior to joining 3Ci, Eric was the senior systems administrator and infrastructure architect for World Avenue, a leading technology development company in the lead generation and advertising industries. Previous to this, Eric was the president / owner and Trillian Financial, Inc., a company specializing in financial solutions for merchant banking and back office solutions. He also spent several years at EMC, Inc. as a senior implementation specialist. Finally, Eric worked with several members of the 3Ci family at iBill, where he was director of infrastructure services.

Eric is a graduate of the University of Miami and he is a proud father of a son as well as a musician.

Reminder: Carrier Provisioning Schedule, Holiday 2009

This is a reminder of the carrier provisioning schedules for this holiday season. Be sure to submit your programs by the dates listed below in order to start the process in 2009.

AT&T

The last date for AT&T to accept programs this year was Tuesday, November 17, 2009 at 12:00 PM EST (noon). Please keep in mind that programs submitted after this date will not begin the provisioning process until January 3, 2010.

Sprint-Nextel

All campaigns must be submitted to Sprint by 12:00 PM EST (noon) on Wednesday, December 2, 2009 (this is for the provisioning cycle occurring on Thursday, December 10, 2009).

For 2010, the first provisioning cycle will begin on Thursday, January 21, 2010 and campaigns must be submitted to Sprint by 12:00 PM EST (noon) on Wednesday, January 13, 2010.

Verizon Wireless

For 2009, Verizon Wireless has established provisioning “freezes” on programs (note that these freezes will take place 48 hours prior to the dates listed below):

  • Thursday, November 26, 2009 (freeze starts Tuesday, November 24, 2009)
  • Friday, December 25, 2009 (freeze starts Wednesday, December 23, 2009)
  • Thursday, December 31, 2009 (freeze starts Tuesday, December 29, 2009)

Virgin Mobile

Please note that there will be no provisioning for Virgin Mobile USA from Sunday, November 22, 2009 (meaning we are already into the first Virgin Mobile freeze) and ending Sunday, November 29, 2009 and then from Sunday, December 20, 2009 to Sunday, January 3, 2010. Normal operations for Virgin Mobile USA are scheduled to resume on Monday, January 4, 2010.

For any questions, please contact 3Cinteractive via telephone at 561.443.5505 or via email at support@3cinteractive.com.

Common Short Code Administration Sale: Buy Three, Get One Free

Common Short Code Administration - CSCA

The CSCA is currently running a buy-three-get-one free (better than a BOGO) promotion: any short code purchased from now to Thursday, December 31, 2009 will receive one month free. So, you pay for three months and get the fourth for free.

For more information on this promotion, contact 3Cinteractive via telephone at 561.443.5505 or via email at support@3cinteractive.com.